My husband and I met in Germany where we also got married in 1993. In April of 2006 I gave birth to our first child, a son named Lucas. In December of 2008 we welcomed our triplets Tyler, Julie and Noah. And this is how our journey as a family of 6 continues...

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Monday, January 26, 2009

Our triplets

In late 2007 we decided to try for another baby. Unfortunately we again couldn't get pregnant on our own so in March of 2008 we decided to seek help from our fertility specialist, Dr. Lu, again. Since we all knew that IUI worked for us with Lucas, we decided to take that route again. Our first try was unsuccessful. In May we went in for the second try with IUI and this time were successful.

I went in for my first ultrasound at the beginning of June and it was discovered that we were having twins. Wow, twins, exciting and a bit scary. I mean we always said we wanted to have two or three children so twins wasn't too bad. During our second ultrasound, the tech saw a spot on the screen in addition to the two sacs. But since it wasn't formed well, she thought it was just some bleeding. Well, during our third ultrasound there was no doubt, three sacs, three heartbeats - we were pregnant with triplets! I remember just wanting to cry. How am I supposed to care for three babies PLUS a 2 year old? I was actually devastated and didn't want to tell anyone about the news. Eventually I got over my selfishness and started to get excited. Maybe we'll be lucky and have a girl. But no matter what, I knew it was going to be a high risk pregnancy and I just wanted the best outcome for our babies.

I was suffering from morning sickness throughout my first trimester. It was miserable. On top of that I would have light bleeding every so often which scared me. Luckily, everything was fine with the babies and I was told that it tends to happen during triplets pregnancies. My second trimester was the most comfortable one. I would see my ob/gyn every other week and was also referred to Maternal/Fetal medicine which I saw every three weeks. It was fun to go to those visits since they always did an ultrasound so I got to see the babies quite often. We eventually found out that we were expecting two boys and a girl....whooooohoooo!!

My doctor often told me that I was his most boring triplet pregnancy ever since I really didn't have any problems and didn't complain much. The only problem I had was the gestational diabetes again, ugh! This time they decided to put me on meds right away. Exercise was out of the question being pregnant with triplets. They had to adjust the meds a few times but it all worked out at the end. At 20 weeks I really started to show and by 24 weeks I looked like I was full term. That's when the babies really kicked into gear and started growing rapidly. Things were getting more uncomfortable, too. It was hard to turn in bed, getting out of bed or out of a chair. Walking was exhausting after a few minutes and breathing was also getting more and more difficult. Towards the end I thought Baby C was actually inside my lungs.

During my prenatal visit on December 9th I had an elevated blood pressure. I was sent to the lab to have some blood drawn for HELLP. They did find out that those blood results were abnormal and so I had to go in a few more times to have it checked to make sure there weren't any changes or else they would have had to get the babies right away. They did put me on strict bed rest at that point. At my next visit on the 15th of December, I still had an elevated blood pressure plus they found some protein in my urine. I had also had some problems with my blood sugar being in the 40's at night time for a few days so my doctor decided to have me admitted into the hospital. I had to do a 24 hour urine test, vital sign check every few hours, ultrasound, blood work etc. Anyways, my blood pressure remained high so they decided to schedule my c-section for the 17th of December at 7 am. I was 33 weeks and 1 day in gestation.

They were all doing fine and did not require any respiratory assistance! All had to stay in the NICU until the 25th of December and were then downgraded to the Special Care Nursery. The reason for them being in the NICU/SCN was to feed and grow and to make sure they could hold their temperatures on their own. Julie was the first one to come home on December 29th, followed by Noah on the 31st of December and last but not least Tyler on January 5th.

Those pictures were taken the day before my c-section - 33 weeks pregnant.

Top picture is Tyler, second Julie, third Noah and last all three together on their way to the NICU.